ASUS W3J, what upgrades?

Tomorrow I'm going to order an ASUS W3J and I have the option to upgrade either the HD, the RAM or the CPU. I'll mainly use the laptop for web development (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash), so alot of programs open at the same time. I'll also use it for playing games like LOTR: The Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends.
What would be the best upgrade? Does a T2300 processor differ much from a T2400? What could be a reason for me to choose a 7200rpm HD over a 5400rpm HD?

RAM isn't such an issue since I can easily upgrade that later on, but does 667mhz differ that much from 533mhz?

Thanks in advance! :asus:

 

Of the three, if you had to chose one that would be most beneficial, id say the cpu upgrade

 

A lot of programs open = a lot of memory. But you can upgrade the memory later...processor would be more difficult and would void warranty..


Go processor

 

Uh, the new, 'refreshed' model W3j's (W3J-H026P) come with a T2500 (2Ghz) processor and a single stick of 1GB 677Mhz RAM. Seems like plenty to start with for what you need, though you may want to get a second hard-drive if you really do alot of PS work...

Edit - the new perpendicular hard-drives are almost as fast as the 7200rpm drives.

 

I am curious as to what country your buying the notebook from?

In anycase, the new W3J will be equipped with a 2.0ghz Yonah, and 1x1gb DDR2 @ 667mhz. So if your buying from North America, i suggest you wait for this laptop.

And if your buying the North American W3J, for you kind of work, either a RAM or HD upgrade would be suitable, i personaly advise a Ram upgrade to 2gb @667, all you have to do is put one more GB into it.

But if you want faster load times and seek times, go for a 7200rpm hard drive.

If your purchasing the laptop from another country, plz state the specs of the laptop, or link and then we can further assist you.

 

Thanks for al the replies!

After doing some more research in various webshops I found the following model: W3J-H027P. I don't know if this is a europe-only model (since I live in the Netherlands), but it comes with he following specs:

* Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83Ghz; 2Mb L2 Cache; 667Mhz FSB)
* 100Gb harddisk 5400RPM
* 1024Mb DDR2 667 (1 x 1024)
* 4* DVD SuperMulti Drive Dual Layer (Hot Swappable)/ 4-in-1 cardreader
* ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB (512MB with Hypermemory)
* 14" WXGA (1280 x 768) TFT Color Shine
* o.a. 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x S-Video TV Out, 1 x Firewire, 1 x Express Card, Gigabit LAN
* Windows XP Prof NL/UK/FR
* Internal W-LAN 54Mbps (3945abg)/ Bluetooth 2.0
* 1 x 8-cells + 1 x 4-cells Li-Ion battery
* 330 x 247 x 30-32.7 mm (W x D x H)/ 2 Kg (4-cell, weight-saver); 2.2Kg (8-cell, weight-saver)
* Free bag and bluetooth mouse

That are the basic specs, I chose to upgrade the HD to a 7200rpm HD as I can easily upgrade the RAM later on.

The fun part is that I was planning on buying a barebone with the exact same specs as the H027P but it would've cost me €200(!) more!

@ MilestonePC.com
I've looked for the H026P but I haven't found it in any dutch webstore, I guess it's even a better deal then the H027P. Is the H027P even available in the US or Canada?

 

What sort of gain we can have by upgrading W3J's RAM to 2GB?

 

None if you dont have lots of memory hungry apps open at the same time. If you have a few apps open then 1GB is enough.

Use task manager to see if you really need RAM. Incresing RAM means when you have lots of apps open they all respond fast as the are in RAM as opposed to being paged to the HD since RAM is low and is being dominated by another app.